


Persephone Is Bleeding

by Zanne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zanne/pseuds/Zanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>When Dean came back from Hell, he smelled of pomegranates.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Persephone Is Bleeding

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://immortal-jedi.livejournal.com/profile)[**immortal_jedi**](http://immortal-jedi.livejournal.com/)  for beta-ing! This is a weird little story that might make no sense at all. But, hey, Kripke hasn't sued me yet. And to keep averting that catastrophe - Kripke owns all. (Originally posted: 1/23/10)

  
When Dean came back from Hell, he smelled of pomegranates.

It took a while for Sam to place it, but it was such a strong scent that Sam wondered if Dean had started to use a new shampoo or cologne; a quick look in the bathroom quickly disproved that theory. He wasn’t used to his brother smelling of fruit – maybe limes on occasion, but he had only smelled that the times he had to guide Dean to pass out on the bed rather than the floor after a night at the bar – so Sam felt it was a logical assumption.

Dean ignored him when Sam teased him about his new perfume, acting as if Sam hadn’t spoken at all until Sam learned not to mention it.

Then there was the time they stopped at that Persian restaurant, looking into a possible karkadann sighting. They had been rewarded for their services by the grateful owners with bowls of aash-e-anar and heaping plates of lamb shanks, stuffed fish, and sweet rice, all of it decorated with a generous sprinkling of pomegranate seeds floating in a thick, red paste.

Dean’s hands shook as the platters were set upon the table, and he reached out for the plate before him, fingers hovering over the red sauce about to spill over the edge. Sam watched his brother’s rapt face, a hunger he’d never seen before flooding Dean's eyes, and hoped they’d finally found something Dean might be willing to eat without persuasion. At the last second, Dean took a strangled breath, his face blanching as he clenched his wandering hand into a fist and clutched it against his chest. He told Sam to eat up, but he had some things to do before they left town.

Sam didn’t see him again until he found Dean two blocks down, hidden in the back of a bar, a glass of some dark, amber liquid in his trembling grasp.

Sam even went so far as to ask Castiel about it, but the angel merely blinked at him and reminded him that Dean had been in Hell quite recently, as if that explained everything.

The scent started to fade several months after Dean returned, Dean’s more familiar gun oil and leather aroma overtaking its sweetness. Sam almost forgot about the nearly feminine perfume that had followed his brother for so long. He still occasionally caught a faint whiff when it was his turn to do laundry, but it was gone before he really noticed it, and he passed it off as evidence of yet another of Dean’s conquests.

The smell might have been gone, and Sam may have forgotten, but Dean never did. Years later, Dean still dreamed of it.

That scent – the sharply sweet, bitter tang of pomegranates – was what a soul smelled like, torn open and bleeding. The bright ruby drops that scattered across the floors of Hell were the tiny, bloody seeds that could be gathered by the handful, food for the ravenous bellies of Hell’s legions.

They were Hell’s currency, more precious than gold, and Dean had once been a very rich man – one of Alastair’s most profitable investments. The scent of his wealth had clung to him long after Dean left the reaping fields behind.

But he never forgot, and the craving never went away; the memory was only buried, resurfacing in his dreams, cupped hands overflowing and his mouth stained red.  
 

  



End file.
